In which I get the van stuck and a black eye (unrelated).

But first a tragedy.

We have to report the passing of West Ham to the Championship. After being told every match (since January was a MUST WIN match it finally became obvious that things weren't to be. And after one loss too many West Ham were relegated. We were on a weekend away in Northumberland and went back to the hotel to listen to the second half (have a snooze) of the Wigan game. Woke up to find Neil staring out of the window with his head in his hands and correctly worked out that the good old Hammers had let their 2 - 0 half time lead go. Shocking defence all season. But on a lighter note there are plenty of Championship clubs round here for Neil to go to. The horror of the new manager is kicking in, nasty few days when thought it could be Allardyce or Mclaren but seems to have gone a bit quiet now. Lets just hope Alex McLeish doesn't get sacked from Birmingham.......


But back to the Mill. Some rooms are nearly finished so have been online, sourcing (hate that word) furniture.

This is the bedroom in the room that is called the flat at the moment but will either be called the kiln room or the drying room as is above one of the kilns in the house. Clever eh!

This is going to be the sitting room area (was our old bathroom with the disabillity bath - one of Dr Cole - prev owners children came in and apparently that bath cost about £15 00.00. Should have put it on ebay not in a bloody skip). So those are the tiles heated by the kiln below where the grain was dried.

And this is the bathroom.

The other rooms will probably be called the workroom (the big room) and the paint shop (there was a spraypaint booth in it) or fairly sensible names like that. Hate places with rooms with tossy names like Larkin and Wordsworth etc.

The top 2 floors are pretty much done, the kitchen goes in at the end of May and all the studwork is up and plastered on the ground floor.

That's the "snug", much better without the green and red panelling and the famous sliding shutter. And even the downstairs toilet is pretty civillised.

Not plumbed in mind but much nicer. And the cellar has been plasterboarded (by me unfortunately).

That's the room that's going to be the gym.

So I took Dennis out for a walk in the van, parked up at the old lead mines, the carpark was quite full so had to park rather close to the stream (yes stream). Had our walk, all going well till time to drive home. Start to reverse back and realise I'm going to hit the little bridge that crosses the stream. Normally wouldn't bother me too much but the sodding thing was on the end of The Dales tv program last week and is very special. So thought I can't back over a world famous star of television bridge that will have thousands of people coming to see it so did a few nifty little moves (always a challenge reversing the van with the dog as he stands up and wobbles and you can't see a bleeding thing) and end up just about hanging over the edge of the stream Itallian Job style. Which wouldn't have been a problem except the van is rear wheel drive and skidded on the gravel car park. Would help if it had some new rear tyres. Those wouldn't look out of place at silverstone or "certainly wouldn't now after I've worn them away". So am at least a mile from nearest house, don't have a phone with me - no reception anyway, dog's leg isn't great so can't walk that far and too hot to leave him in the van. So swear my head off for a bit which helped then sat down to wait. After about 1/2hr nice old couple (sadly too old to push the van) come up in a 4 x 4 and offer to tow me out, the only rope we have tho is a washing line in the van for emergencies ?hanging out washing on site. This of course snaps by they very kindly offer to drive me back to the house which they do, me in the front with Dennis on my knee trying to stop him attacking their border collie.

So you can imagine the reception I got from Neil and Mick (plasterer). Thank god there were only 2 of them to take the piss out of me. Anyway eventually Mick very kindly towed us out and I've been a figure of fun (prob always was) and making tea eversince.

We are awaiting the arrival of the travellers or other names. They park on the green en route to the Appleby horse fair. Opinion seems to vary between them adding a touch of local colour and being a bunch of thieving scrounging bastards that rob anything thats not nailed down etc. Neil's going to send Moleskin out onto the green with a bit of copper round her neck and see what happens.

And as for the black eye, headbutted by Dennis of course.



Spring.

Well it's all beautiful here in the Dales. It's been fantastic weather and we've been working hard in the garden.

It's pretty overgrown at the moment but really nice. The river is very low at the moment, but very busy.

We have several duckling famillies which are really rather sweet. Just hoping that Blackie (cat) doesn't show too much interest. He has caught a couple of baby rats (or they've died in the house in suspicious circumstances) and there was the mystery smell (obv blamed on Moleskin - that cat shits all over the house etc etc) that turned out to be a very dead mouse under the sofa. And talking of shitting all over the house Blackie spends most of his days outside asleep by the compost bin? Only comes in to use the litter tray. behaviour which Neil says is TOTALLY UNNACEPTABLE. And talking again of awful toileting behaviour Dennis... had a night away in a pub so Neil could go and see Man City beat West Ham. I did my wifely duty by driving him to and from the football ground and backing the car into a bollard, (fairly large dent). But Dennis, oh dear, nice weather, people eating outside, lets just say 7 bags, 2 bottles of water, some moved diners and very thorough hand washing later.

So we have some vegetable patches.

Have planted about half of the second one, nothing yet just flocks of smug looking birds flying off everytime I go and check things out.  But my propogators well that's a different matter.

Have a very efficient plan so I know whats where but think Neil's moved them all around "for a laugh". So maybe this summer we'll get some vegetables else birds dropping out of the sky due to obesity.

And Den is very excited about the new neighbours.

He really doesn't know what to do - just woof's in a stupid fashion. Blackie is quite friendly with them (there's 3) and touches noses etc, but Moleskin, lets face it who knows what goes on in her furry little head anyway.

Now to inside. Oh the horror of the kitchen. We put up the partition so the residents can get to the dining room without seeing us. None of that open kitchen shit here. And I've been plasterboarding, Neil's been dry lining and look at it.

Nice new cooker by the way. But...

Now that does look like a Mr Trebus Life of Grime / serial killer's kitchen, in fact it does, it looks like the pictures of Bin laden's "luxury" hideaway faithfully reproduced with great excitment in the Sun. You can see noone respects my rule about no power tools on the work surfaces, and as for trying to teach Neil to "clean up as he goes" when he's cooking, how?  I mean I do clean it up every night before cooking tea but still.

And power tools, look at that

Now that's a mans screwdriver for you, looks like a cross between Thunderbird 5 and the Liberator, it's magnetic, has a light on it and goes faster than the speed of sound. But curiously only weighs about 100g, unlike the shonky old piece of shite I get.

Weighs about 4kg and has the wrong battery which falls out on your feet all the time - v. painful.